‘Sit down there, girl, you look fragile. Your blood is obviously thin.’
Avelina pointed to a low bench near the fire-pit and when Gertrude was seated, she squatted on her haunches opposite. ‘So you don’t need to bring on your monthly courses?’ she said bluntly.
The younger woman, who looked about twenty years old, shrugged. ‘Yes, I do — but not because I’m with child.’
Avelina frowned as she scratched at her left armpit, where a flea was biting her. ‘You wish to have a child, is that it?’
Gertrude hesitantly explained her problem. ‘I have three children already — and have lost two more by miscarriage. But all of them were girls — and my husband is becoming impatient for a son to carry on his business, as he is a master carpenter. He has a workshop near St Nicholas’ Priory.’
Avelina began to understand. ‘You wish to conceive a boy? Well, maybe the next one will be.’
Gertrude shook her head. ‘I was married at fourteen and have been pregnant every year until last year. Now I have seen no monthly flow since last Advent, yet I am not with child. My courses have dried up and I cannot conceive.’
‘Do you wish to become gravid again?’ asked Mistress Sprot, almost aggressively. These poor girls were like her cows outside, never free from either pregnancy or lactation.
‘Only if it would be a male child,’ Gertrude said softly. ‘Else my husband would be very angry. And he is a big, strong man.’
The older woman took her meaning and looked covertly at Gertrude’s face for signs of bruising.
‘I was told that you were a wise woman, expert in these matters, so I have come to you. I have very little money, but can give you what I have.’
Avelina shrugged as if to dismiss the idea of a fee, then leaned forward and, with a dirty finger, pulled down one of Gertrude’s lower eyelids. ‘You are as pale as death, girl!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you eat well — or give it all to your big husband?’
‘We have three hungry girls as well and this year has been a very bad one, for carpenters as well as those who live off the land.’
The cunning woman wagged a finger at Gertrude. ‘Tell your man that if he wants a son, he must stop eating all the meat himself. You need blood to start your courses, you have drained yourself with five pregnancies.’
‘I need a son, not just another child,’ countered the woman, with a trace of desperation in her voice.
Avelina hauled herself to her feet and went over to a wall, where several crude shelves were fixed above a table that carried a pestle and mortar, together with a couple of pewter dishes. Now that her eyes could see better, Gertrude noticed that many bunches of dried vegetation hung from the roof beams and that the shelves were filled with pots and packets of all shapes and sizes.
‘Take one of these every morning with a mug of small ale,’ Avelina commanded, offering a small packet wrapped in a scrap of parchment, tied with twine.
‘Will they induce a boy-child?
‘Not at all, but they may persuade your courses to return, without which you’ll not give birth to as much as a mouse, let alone a boy-child. They are for thickening the blood.’
Gertrude’s face fell. ‘Is there nothing else you can do for me?’ she asked plaintively.
Avelina clucked her tongue. ‘Patience, girl, patience! Listen while I tell you what to do.’
Ten minutes later, Gertrude came out of the cottage with a smile on her face, one hand clutching the cloth purse which hung from her girdle, making sure that the collection of herbs and oddments it contained were safe. The three pence that she had saved from her housekeeping were now in a stone jar on Avelina’s shelf, but the young woman considered that it had been money well spent.
Up at the top end of the city, the county court was in session within the walls of Rougemont Castle. Often known as either the Shire Court or the Sheriff’s Court, it was held once a fortnight and usually lasted at least a whole day. However, this August session was quieter than usual, which John de Wolfe attributed to the previous weeks of bad weather, which had slowed down most outside activities and reduced the number of people travelling, giving less opportunity for robberies and assaults.
He sat in his usual place on the low dais at the end of the bare hall, which lay inside the inner ward of the castle. The coroner was obliged to attend every session, to record any matters which had a bearing on cases that might go to the royal courts — and to present various matters to the sheriff, who now sat in the only decent chair in the middle of the platform. To either side were a few benches and stools, on which sat a representative of the Church and one of the more prominent burgesses of the city. A couple of trestle tables gave writing space for the clerks and, at one of these, Thomas de Peyne was perched. His parchments were spread out before him and his quill waggled furiously as he inscribed them with his impeccable Latin. Farther back, Gwyn of Polruan stood gossiping in a low voice with his friend Gabriel, the sergeant of the garrison’s soldiers.
Today’s token priest was Brother Rufus, the portly monk who was the castle’s chaplain, who now seemed be dozing on his stool in the heat of late morning. On the other side of the sheriff from the coroner was Ralph Morin, the Viking-like constable of Rougemont — another friend of de Wolfe and a covert antagonist of Sheriff Richard de Revelle.
The latter was posturing in his chair, showing off his latest costume, which he had bought on his last visit to Winchester. The dapper guardian of Devonshire wore a long tunic of bright green linen, with gold embroidery around the neck and hem, which was slit back and front for riding a horse. A loose surcoat of fawn silk was kept open to display his splendid new tunic and a wide leather belt, secured by a large burnished buckle. His feet were encased in soft calf-length boots with ridiculously long, curled toes, padded inside with teased wool — and at the other end of his slim body, a pointed beard had been freshly trimmed and perfumed. Above it, his narrow, foxy face sneered out at the world, especially despising the accused and supplicant folk that were paraded in front of the judgement seat.
‘How many more this morning?’ he snapped in an aside to his senior clerk, who hovered just behind him.
‘Just a few, sire. We should finish by dinner-time today, no more this afternoon.’
Richard sighed with relief. It was hot and he was looking forward to a jug of Anjou wine and the dishes of grilled fish and cold pork that awaited him in his chambers in the keep. He dragged his attention back to the next case, as two men-at-arms thrust forward a sullen youth to stand before him on the beaten earth below the dais. He was dressed in filthy rags and had blue and yellow bruises all down one side of his face, a legacy of two weeks in the burgesses’ prison in one of the towers of the South Gate. Of those confined there awaiting trial or execution, a sizeable proportion died of disease or from assault by other prisoners — though quite a few managed to bribe the warders and escape.
The chief clerk stepped forward with the ends of a parchment roll grasped in each hand. He read out the details of the youth’s case, as a shifting audience of a score of citizens and peasants listened from where they stood at the back of the barren chamber.
‘This is Stephen Aethelard, an outlaw. He was recognised as such in the vill of Dunstone, and captured by the men of that place.’
The man glowered up at the sheriff, who turned languidly to his brother-in-law.
‘John, have you details of the exigent?’
The coroner stood, unwinding his tall body from his stool and reaching back to take a roll from Thomas, who had it ready to hand to him. He opened it, but did not look at it, as he was unable to read more than a few simple words, laboriously learned from his tutor in the cathedral. However, Thomas had primed him beforehand about the essential facts.
‘This man lived in the said Dunstone and was appealed by John de Witefeld for breaking into his house, stealing fifteen shillings and assaulting his daughter Edith on the eve of the Feast of St Michael and All Angels last September. Attached by two sureties to attend this court, he made himself scarce and did not answer. His name was called at the four subsequent sittings of this court, but he still did not answer and was declared exigent on the fifth day of November last.’